It turned out to be neither ancient nor a clochan. When a surveyor examined it in 1998, two years after its initial recording, the structure proved to be subrectangular rather than the round or oval form typical of genuine clochans, measuring roughly 1.6 metres by 1.7 metres internally and standing to a maximum height of 1.8 metres. The walls do show slight corbelling, where stones are laid so that each course projects a little further inward than the one below, but not enough to have ever closed into a proper corbelled roof.

The misidentification is understandable. The Burren landscape around Cahermacnaghten is scattered with early ecclesiastical and domestic remains, and a low drystone structure glimpsed among the grey limestone flags and thin grass could easily be taken for something older. The original note of a possible beehive hut came in 1996 from T. Coffey, and the listing in the Record of Monuments and Places followed. The closer inspection two years later quietly revised that reading. An oval stone structure sits about ten metres to the east of this one and is also considered likely modern. What the two structures were actually built for is not recorded.